HB 172 
.L36 
Copy 1 



mu 




S 



OF THE m MD OF ECONOMICS 



ADDRESS 



DEI.n'ERED y-\ 



SECRETARY OF INTERNAL AFFAIRS OF PENNSYLVANIA. 



BEFORE THE SIXTEENTH ANNUAL CONVENTION OF THE NATIONAL ASSOCIA- 
TION OF OFFICIALS OF BUREAUS OF LABOR STATISTICS. 



MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN, JULY II, I900. 



WM. STANLEY RAY, 

STATE PRINTER OF PENNSYLVANIA. 
1900. 



OF THE LAW AND OF ECONOMICS 



ADDRESS 



DELIVERED BY 



SECRETARY OF INTERNAL AFFAIRS OF PENNSYLVANIA. 



v\ 



BEFORE THE SIXTEENTH ANNUAL CONVENTION OF THE NATIONAL ASSOCIA- 
TION OF OFFICIALS OF BUREAUS OF LABOR STATISTICS. 



MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN, JULY II, I900. 



WM. STANLEY RAY, 

STATE PRINTER OF PENNSYLVANIA. 
1900. 

;3 w 



H3\li- 






p. 
S* coast &Geode t ic Survey 
I2N'00 



(2) 



OF THK LAW AND OF KCONOMICS. 



An Address Delivered bv James W. Latta, Sei-retarj of Internal 
Attaiis of l*ennsylvania, before the KJth Annual Convention of 
the National Association of OflBclals of Bureaus of Labor Statis- 
tics. Milwaukee. Wisconsin, July 11, 11)0(1. 

The wisdom of the judge has often been questioned, his integrity 
sometimes assailed, but the law he interprets has rarely been defied. 
Whatever denunciation may reach other governmental functions, 
the law and its administration have always commanded respect, not 
for the awe it inspires or the fear it engenders, but for the inherent 
legard its majesty invokes. The majesty of the law is the only sov- 
ereign the Republic knows. Puncture the integrity of its enforce- 
ment and the throne itself is threatened. The complaints of the 
disappointed suitor, the infrequent preferences of prejudice, the in- 
cidental exhibitions of passion, the rare suspicions of corruption, the 
occasionel uncorrected errors of judicial incapacity never disturb 
the concession to the august supremacy of the law. Improvident 
corporation legislation, pre-election legislation providing methods 
that may subsequently be made operative to overcome the popular 
will, obnoxious statutes, the repeal of which their rigorous enforce- 
ment sometimes coercesi, have in no wise impaired the exercise of 
authority for the preservation of right, the ]>roiiibiti'on of wrong. 
The supreme power of the State still comumn'ds. The rule of action 
it prescribes is still the law. 

The State protects itself against those who would destroy it, so- 
ciety against crime, the individual against injury. Against the 
person of the convict and the property of the delinciuent the law exe- 
cutes its decrees. In the one instance tlie injury done socii^ty is 
atoned for; in the other the wrongs done the individual are righted. 
The body answers for the crime; the property responds for the de- 
linquency. 

The .system of rules and regulations which is recognized as the law 
that ausong men governs their intercourse with each ether and 
]»rotecis society from crime, is that law of personal security whose 
supi-enuicy commands resi)ect, elicits obedience. The jiolitical ( n- 
^ironuuait that concerns the administiation of the governmental 
functions that maintain liberty, resist invasion, subdue riot, sujj- 
pi'css insurrection, is the propagator of the more exalted senti- 

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nieiit of piitiiotisin, the jiatriotism ilial ri'<-(»<;niz«'S the llaji of oiii* 
couniiy as the common conscrvatoi- of our national dignity, tlic 
common aibitci- of our national dt'stiny. "In cvcrythinfi' which 
conccin>-! civil and political liberty," says an imminent text writer, "no 
i^ystem has yet been devised that can be compared with the free 
spirit of the Itn^lish and Anierican comnjon law." 

The common law is a creature of conditions and necessities. It is 
custom and usage gradually adopted, sanctioned by the courts. Jt 
A\as before legislatures were, and has been since. All law did not 
begin by legislative consent, and therefore the common law is not 
as one of the earlier writers phrases it "statutes worn out by time." 
A better comprehension of its origin and stability is supplied by Sir 
Matthew Hale. "It is not," he says, "the product of the wisdom of 
some one man or society of men in any one age, but the wisdom, coun- 
sel, experience and observation of many ages of wise and observ- 
ing men." It is indigenous where constitutional liberty thrives; 
elsewhere it is an exotic. 

A^'herc^in had this free spirit of the common law its earliest mani- 
festations? The common law is a rich illustration of the processes 
of evolution. Born of the villages in the jutting peninsulas that nar- 
row the Baltic, and their adjacent lowlands, its traditional develop- 
ments "preserved in a nation's memories" reached their fullest frui- 
tion in the treaty King John made with his barons in the beginning 
of the thirteenth century. The age of traditional rights was to 
pass away and "the age of written legislation of parliaments and 
statutes was to come." The youth in the academy, in his first at- 
tempt at English composition, rarely fails to exploit something of 
Kunyniede, the Barons, King John and the charter. The profound- 
est statesman finds in»piiation in the theme, and so it will ever be. 

The full intendment of this ancient declaration is frequently over- 
looked. Had it been confined to the barons, as their i)romineuce in 
forcing its initiative would indicate was jts purpose, its perpetuity 
would never have been stamijed, as it has been, upon free institutions 
everyvvht^i-e. The I'ights secured were "not of baron and church- 
men only, but of freeholder and merchant, of townsman and 
villein." \A'here the privilege of the simple freeman is not secured 
by the clause which primarily affects the baron, a supplementary 
clause is added to define and protect his rights. The merchant, it 
was agreed, might go out of the kingdom and return at his pleasure. 
He was to be protected by a uniform standard of weights and meas- 
ures, and allowed to transact his business free from arbitrary tolls 
and impositions. Trade was invited from abroad, and the foreign 
merchant encoui aged to visit the kingdom by the protection accorded 
him. No fine could be levied to the utter ruin of anyone, and the 
villein or rustic by ifine or amercement was not to be deprived of his 



luiix's. his caits. his jiloughs, or iiiii)leinents of husbandry. An ex- 
enijition hiw had for the tirst time dechued its purpose. One of the 
eoucludint; clauses is of foiceful siguitiiani-e. It embodies provi- 
sions so essential to the maintenance of constitutional government 
that with but little moditication they have ever ai)i)eared in the fun- 
damental law of every free state. "No freeman shall be taken or 
imprisoned or disseized or outlawed or exiled uv anywise destroyed; 
nor will we go upon him, nor send upon him, but by the lawful judg- 
ment of his peers or the law of the laud. To none will we sell, to 
n(.ne will we deny or delay, right or justice I" 

What were the contempoianeous opportunities elsewhere, save 
under the favor of royal prerogative, where the free spirit of the 
common law was unknown? Mark the contrast of these insular con- 
cessions with the interruptions and lestrictions that beset the 
trader in the Latin countries of the Continent. The king's right to 
the market was assured by the law. When his vintage came to 
town, the innkeeper closed his doors, the wine shop ceased to do 
business until His Majesty's stock was disposed of. And there were 
other formidable rivals; the Seigneur and Abbe came after the 
king and held the monopoly. "Where king, noble, or cleric turned 
tradesman for the non( e, the tradesman as such went promptly to the 
wall." 

The king, by the ficticui of a divine right, was pi-one to be a law 
unto himself. The obedience he yielded to his Parliament was a 
reluctant obedience. The distinction between the constitutional 
s(>.vereign and the sovereign of divine right, the sovereign absolute, is 
forcefully suggested in a neatly constructed dispatch of Lord Kol)erts 
r('i>oiting one of his recent operations in South Africa. "I hoi)e that 
Her Majesty's government (not her majesty) may consider the event 
satsifactory, occurring as it does, on the anniversary of Majuba." 
Learned jurists interpreted the cominon lav.', scholarly commentator.'^ 
exjiounded it, the king forgetful of his pledges sometimes interrui)ted 
the free spirit of its liberty. Though its force was at times sus- 
pended, its substance was never impaired. Cromwell had overcome 
the divine dynasty and was ready to accejtt a coustitutioial mon- 
archy; but the King was utterly untrustwoithy, and the a.rmy de- 
fiant, intolt-rant, arrogant. The jjeaceful revolution lat«M- on 
achieved what its bloodier predecessor had piartically ai-com]ilish('d, 
and the law was forever freed froiu .itlier kingly interrujjtions at 
home. 

The King was not so content to desist from i^stiM-ference with the 
operations of the common law in his colonial ])ossessions. It was 
no exotic when trans}ilan(ed to the teujpeiate zones of the North 
American Continent. Here it flourished with prodigious growth. The 
Mavflower Pilgrims before they secured their landing jilace solem:!ly 



(Mivcuaiitcd. ill the caliiu of IIumi- vcs.scl, that tlic will of the majority 
should be the law of the laud. The Welcouie bore across teuipestu- 
ous seas to her Peuusylvania destiuation the ''Frame of Goverument." 
drafted by the Founder of the rroviiue, as the creed of his "Holy 
Experimeut.'' Of its many potent declarations there was no more 
forceful deliverance than this, "Any j^overnment is free to the people 
under it, where the laws rule and the people are a party to these 
laws." How nearly he had reached the ])hrase, with which amid the 
perils of our civil war the immortal Lincoln subsequently electrified 
the nation, "A government of the people, for the people and by the 
people shall not perish from the earth!" More than one hundred and 
fifty years before the I'nited Colonies declared themselves a free and 
independent nation they were approaching perilously near a Re- 
public. 

An American writer of much reputation has recently declared in 
a magazine contribution of esj)ecial value, "The true principles of 
religious tolerance and political equality in all their bearings were 
beyond the grasp of the seventeenth century." The qualification, 
"in all their bearings," preserves the writer's conclusions to a better 
fate than a critical analysis would otherAvise accord them. The in- 
tolerance that was furious in Great Britain, relentless in Massachu- 
setts, was unknown in Pennsylvania. That Province greeted every 
creed, doctrine and sect alike. Within its limits every man might 
in truth and fact worslii]) God according to the dictates of his own 
conscience; nor could he, as the^ humorist has phrased it, prevent 
every other man from worshiping God according to the dictates of 
his. So conspicuous was Pennsylvania for its absolute freedom of 
worship, amid these prevalent intolerances that Goldwin Smith has 
styled the Province "'A religious museum." The exhibititm is still on 
view without charge. Maryland, Rhode Island and New York were 
in their constructive period scarce a whit behind. Political equality 
had a more universal acceptance than religious tolerance, certainly 
upon this side of the Atlantic. The few years of theocratic govern- 
ment in Massachusetts, that restricted the suffrage to the church, 
disappeared before the seventeenth century went out. Representa- 
tive government in s«me form prevailed in all of the colonies, and the 
people seemed never better satisfied than when through their repre- 
sentatives they were either delaying i)ayment of or cutting down the 
salaries of their royal governors. 

The common law with its free spirit of liberty finds a more congen- 
ial home wherever the flag floats "over the land of the free and the 
home of the brave." It is fitted alike for all colors, all races, all con- 
ditions. Its firmest abiding place has been the United States of 
North America where the amplitude of its far-reaching equalities in- 
cludes Saxon and Teuton, Latin and Gelt, Slav and Scandinavian. 



The distaut orient leels the stiinulus of its attaiuable possibilities, 
acd the islands that were of the Spanish Main are looking to the new- 
life its guarantees assure. It is as beneficent in peace as it is rigor- 
ous in war. It has brought revolution to success, i-outed rebellion, 
suppressed insurrection, made a nation and set the bondman free. 
It has created generals capable for the field, jurists? learned for the 
forum, statesmen skilled for the cabinet. The state, the church and 
the family have ever been its especial trusts, and to them all it has 
faithfully discharged the full purpose of its mission. 

In the early middle ages nearly all there was of learning was em- 
bodied in theology or law. Scarce any other branch of knowledge 
was yet of suflicient compass to maintain for itself a separate estab- 
lishment. Questions of industrial jjolicy w'ere treated of as inci- 
dental details in the one or the other of the two systems. It may not 
be inappropriate therefore, economics now conducting its own in- 
dependent establishment, to place it in touch with an acquaintance 
of its youth for a brief association. 

More than a century since it began to be accepted with some 
crudity that the lives men lead and the callings men pursue in the 
relations that sustain the one and the conditions that support the 
other were collectively deducible to such principles as to evolve a 
science. As this acceptance grew to conviction, the philosopher 
sought to so apply the science as to deduce from it such a useful art 
that its application might inure for the general betterment. Known 
in its earlier conception as political economy, it has so broadened it- 
self as to include as well, sociology, which though of junior creation 
now dominates it; and statistics still of later birth is also its close 
correlated adjunct. A science may be either the methodical collec- 
tion of certain associated principles, causes and efi'ects verified by 
observation, or it may be the result of the research of discovery or the 
a])plication of invention. The ultimate mission of science is that 
it shall accomplish a practical and substantial purpose. 

Economics is made up of environment. It is the scientific render- 
ing of educated observation. The better intelligences accept its prop- 
ositions, recognize its conclusions. The prudent and thrifty abide 
by its teachings. The ignorant and idle are restive under its re- 
el uirements. ^ 

Man lives in an atmosphere of economics and yields unconscious 
obedience to its behests. On terms of closest intimacy with its 
oi>eralions, he yet is a stranger to the science as a science. The aim 
of life in the material spheres is the satisfaction of desires. This 
end is obtained by the unconscious obedience to the requirements of 
a science with which the seeker for the end has but a partial ac- 
quaintance. He prefers to accept the acquaintance for what it is 



8 

^v()Illl. latlicr than be liuidciied with the study that a broader knowl- 
edge demands. 

Eeonoinic-s is a science that subtly formulates its judgments, subtly 
draws its conclusions. Its decrees are executed by the very virtue 
of necessity. The state is the master of society, enforces respect 
through authority, executes its purpose by the inherent strength of 
the laws it has created. Economics is so far dependent upon the 
state lliat it survives only upon the social structure the State pie- 
sei-ves. Though neither of inspiration nor prophecy, economics 
stands to material life as a cre<?d does to spiritual. 

Konum civilization A\as never softened by the acceptance of a 
Christian faith. Whatever contributions its wise men may have 
made to its stability, they never scientifically adjusted ecomnnical 
conditions towards its permanency. There were discordant differ- 
ences between its social classes. Tlie central power claimed a 
fancied omnipotence. The irresistable laws of human nature were 
neglected. Tatrician dignity was w^ounded if touched by the middle 
class. This estrangement was Eome's sorest trial in the hour of her 
gieatest misfortune. The misfortune came when the northern bar- 
barians overran the Provinces and the city itself. Savagery has al- 
ways accepted modern civilization or disappeared before it. Not so 
with the ancient. The middle classes preferred its rough justice 
to the tyrranous exactions of the patricians. The Roman arms could 
not overcome the invasion, nor the influences of an effete and waning 
civilization pursuade the savage hordes to accept it. 

Economics has never failed to meet new inventions, new conditions. 
The trust was supposed to have dealt a staggering blow to the axiom 
that "Competition is the life of trade." Whether competition does 
not yet survive and is not yet ready with its blow to equally stagger 
the trust still awaits determination. Combination is the antithesis 
of comi)etition. Trade is no stranger to either. In a modest way 
combination has been the engine to stiffen a breaking or advance 
a steady market. Tn a cruel w^ay it has been a method to carry to 
commei'cial oblivion many who would have been glad to be permitted 
to be advantaged by its opportunities. 

By the law a man may do what he will with his own. A cardinal 
tenet of the economic science is that all his belongings are his for 
the satisfaction of his desires and it is of his own free will whether 
he accej)ts or rejects the doctrines of religion. He must not violate 
the rights of his neighbor, otherwise his morals, his gains, his labor, 
his possessions are solely for his individual disposition. 

The dogmas of the faith as expounded by the fathers were most 
seriously opposed, because it was contended that with their accejjt- 
ance, man surrendered his free agency. If it has been foi-ordained 
whatsoever should come to pass, then the purpose of man to work out 



I) 

liis own salvation has been denied bini; it bas been anticipated bv a 
selection, in which he has had no part. The Christian church was 
rent in twain. Schism, creed and doctrine not content with intellec- 
tual conibat drenched Continental Europe in bloody battle for more 
than half a century. l>ut the Christian faith still survives and man 
is as fully recognized as a free agent in things spiritual as it is ad- 
mitted he is in things material. 

Is that free agency still conceded him in his nuiterial affairs? Has 
the economic princii)le of the personal disposition of possessions for 
the satisfaction of desires collapsed, v)r the law's provision that a man 
may do what he will witli his own been suspended, because of ex- 
isting social conditions beyond the reach of the economic art? Such 
would seem to be the conclusion of the distinguished scholar who pre- 
sides at that eminent seat of learning, the Yale University. In his 
work, "Econoniics, an account of the Relations between Private 
Property and Publu- Welfare," Prof. Hadley subjects the question to 
this treatment. "Although laws,'" he says, "prescribing what a man 
may buy or sell have fallen into disuse, it must not be supposed that 
every man exercises his intelligence and pleasuie to buy what will 
give him the most happiness." * * * >• \ jai-oe part of the ex- 
pense of most people is regulated not by their own desires and de- 
mands, but by the demands of the i)ublic sentiment of the com- 
munit^v about them." * * * ..r^^^ standard of life in every family 
is fixed in large measure by social conventions." * * * -Al- 
though we have made much progress in the direction of economic 
freedom, it is a mistake to assume that the authority of custom in 
these matters is a thing of the past. AA'ith most men custom regu- 
lates their economic action more potently than any calculation of 
utility which they are able to make." There would be a loneliness 
about the result of such a calculation that would severely neutralize 
its utility, if custom were out of it entirely and individuality its 
only basis. Isolation is a bane to usefulness. Its saving antidote is 
com])anionshiit. The cloister and the closet life is a hindran<-e to 
development. Nature makes the whole world kin. 

Man must be within society to be within the ])ale of economic au- 
thority. If he chooses to clothe or equij) himself in a strange garb, 
deny the fashions and disport himself against the usages of society, 
he is t)utside its pale and its infinence. His jileasures unfit him for 
social contact. If he is not of contact with his fellows, he is not of 
society and consequently not a subject for economic discussion. 
Custom is a king in society without judicial or legislative restraint. 
Obedience or exclusion is the alternative decree. Obedience would 
be less onerous if extravagances were curtailed, foibles diminished 
and waste eliminated. But these are of detail subject to change 
and controllable by usage, they in no wise impair the stmicture itself. 



10 

The social comjiact makes (he state; liie stale ju-eserves tlie social 
conii)act. ^Vlly seek to establish a standard of economic freedom 
ajiart fiom either the state or society? Without society and its cus- 
toms and the state and its laws '.x-onomics has no abiding place. 
Nomadic life, rural life, sa\aj;e life need no touch of economic direc- 
tion, seek MO hel}) from economic guidance. Out of society where 
will man find happiness? It cannot diminish his iiidependenc(> to 
be where haj)piness only can be found. 

And then the learned author turns to the present business methods 
as another formidable barrier to the free exercise of individual judg- 
ment. "The success of advertising," he declares, "shows how little 
intelligence is habitually exercised in these matters." Solicitation 
so induces buyers that, as he deduces it, "three-quarters of them ex- 
ercise no choice at all." The drummer, the newspaper, the poster, 
the five cent store and the bargain counter, to follow the professor's 
own forcible diction, are "the drums and trumpets" that abuse man's 
"nominal freedom" and "tell him in stertorian tones what he wants 
to buy." 

A bargain like an agreement is a meeting of two minds, or in 
familiar parlance "it takes two to make a bargain." The satisfac- 
tion of desire or the right to do what he will with his own is not the 
purchaser's exclusive right. A like privilege prevails equally with 
the seller. The over-persnasion of the vendor in no way disturbs 
the right of the purchaser to think for himself. A horse trade is 
proverbial as a line illustration of David Harum's paraphrase of the 
(ndden Eule, "Do unto the other feller the way he'd like to do nnto 
you. an' do it fust? In no other transaction are the faculties so 
strained, the wits so quickened, the lie so frequent, except the veri- 
est guy venture upon the market. Is the shop-keeper the sole arbiter 
(•f hi.-- own bargain counter? ITe may at times lure the unwary, but 
he is iSSapt to meet not a few, notably of the other sex, equally quick 
willed v\-ith himself. If the merchant be at all fair in his ethics, may 
not his experienceassure abetter bargain than not infrequently would 
be induced by the crude notions of his customers? American women 
were never better dressed, American children were never better 
clothed than they are to-day. Americans were never better fed, 
never better housed than they are in this the close of this wonderful 
nineteenth century. An excellent fit and tasty pattern are the notice- 
able feature of the dress of Avomen of every class, and men are a close 
second. Has not the trader, with his training, added something to 
these conditions, especially among -those whose employment and 
situation have limited their opportunity for choice? Independent 
action cannot be measured by a failure to assert it where the right to 
independent action exists; nor economic freedom be im})aired for 
lack of know'ledge or op])ortunity to best maintain it. 



11 

For the present, it would seem, that society must be content with 
observation for a reasonable assurance of its betterment in diet and 
dress. Sociology demands a statistical basis, declines to infer and 
is S'low to act on estimation. Its better philosophical sugccf^- 
Tion is that as social statistics present the most delicate questions. 
*'with facts themselves so elusive as to escape exact expression,'' cor- 
rect analysis and interpretation are attended with much hindrance. 
Statistical data that would express the motives of men's actions are 
unattainable. If they were, it is admitted it would be seen how 
in many cases "the narrow line of family relation makes itself felt in 
the broader manifestation of social life." "The family is the im- 
portant factor in the growth of population." "Family life is the 
foundation of the moral life of the community." 

The family, the dwelling and the wage have been in many details 
subjects for wide sociological treatment from effective statistical 
data and classification. '"All social conditions have intimate 
connections with the family and family life." While in France 11 
]>er cent, of families consist of one individual, there are but 7 per 
cent, of such families in Germany and 8.63 per cent, in the United 
States. Every wlieie there are more families than dwellings. In the 
United States there are 1(1.5 per cent, more families than dwellings. 
In the agricultural states of the south the excess is very small, while 
i:i Massachusetts it is 35 per cent., in Rhode Island 43.5, in New York 
4(>.5. It is, of course, in the cities where there ai'e the largest num- 
ber of persons and families to a house. In New York 16 per cent, 
of the dwellings have one family. 11 per cent, two families and 13 per 
cent, three families and more. In Brooklyn 51 ]>er cent, one family, 23 
per cent, two families, 2i\ per cent, three or more, while Philadelphia 
has almost as many houses as families. Of Philadeljihia it may also 
be noticed that despite the marked tendency towards decrease in the 
size of the family in cities, that city seems less affected by the de- 
ciease. and the number of jtersons to the family is greater there than 
in any of the larger cities of the country. 

The tenement house and the apartment house are modern innova- 
tions. The tenement bodes of evil, unless its outside sanitary con- 
ditions for light and air, and its inside for ventilation and cleanliness, 
shall be controlled by ollicial supervision. The apartment house is 
not the American home. It is a menace to the fireside. It offers 
relief from the cares of house-keeping, presents strong temptations 
to abandon family responsibilities, tends to lessen progeny, and 
extends enticing greetings to accept the gossipy comforts of its 
jtioffered idleness. \\\t\\ such a contemplation John Howard Payne's 
muse would never have been thrilled to the production of his un- 
equaled A'erse. Xo such inspiration would ever have imjtelled the 
creation of the l)eautiful stanzas of "Home. Sweet Home." The law 
rarely given to sentimental demonstration is awake t»» the invasion 

I. arc. 



12 

of the SiUi-cd pit'ciiu'ts of the lioiiie. Tlu- state, wlioii it (Iclc^atcs so 
jiieat a p()"\vei- as the right of eniinont (hunain to ihv lailway coriMiia- 
ticm, excmiits from its opei'ations the (Iwciiiiig house when in the oc- 
cnitaiicv of its OAvner, The railway may take for a just comixMisa- 
tiou all other property essential to the i)roi>er (leveU)pment of its 
franchisi', but tlu^ h(-me is preserved inviolate against intr\ision. 

The American wage is the highest wage anywhere. The body of 
workers is of the highest efficiency, and the resuUs obtained from the 
American wage are the best results. \\'hatever improvidence some- 
times attends the wage earner's expenditures, he so adjusts his means 
of livelih(K)d to the prices of the necessaries and comforts of life as 
lo assure to himself a better social condition than is anywhere else 
a.ltainable. His social contentment gives cai)ital its conlidence, 
and his steady emjjloymeut at remunerative rates is the foundation 
for the best economic environment. 

Hunger hinders p»rogress. A poorly nourished community cannot, 
be expected to be an enterprising community. Diet and the tene- 
ment, like food and raiment, are in responsive relationship. If men 
are better housed, it is conclusive that they will be better fed. 
Cleanliness follows, and health follows cleanliness. It is not so very 
long ago, as history measures time, since society ate with its Angers 
instead of its fork. A gentlewoman of France boasted that she had 
not washed her hands for eight days. Peter the Great was shnnned 
at the ( -ourt of Elizabeth because of his uncleanly ways and that 
Court itself was quite culpable in a like direction. Lady Mary Wort- 
ley Montague, "the liveliest, wittiest, severest" was said to be the 
"dirtiest"' woman of her time. Phillip II of Spain, commenting on a 
most important state paper submitted for his t riticism, where refer- 
ence had been made to the presence of lice in the. location of wiiich 
the paper treated, made the single marginal note, ^'they might have 
bten fleas." That jiortion of our urban i)oimlation living by the 
closest economy has better oppoitunity foi' cleanliness than in days 
not so very distant was permitted to princes and potentates. There 
is no house of modern construction without its bath, no matter how 
diminutive its proportions. The tenement, when sanitary insjivc- 
tion shall have wider enforcement, will be snjjjjlied with like facili- 
ties. The country side is a])ace with o]>])oitunities for like advan- 
tages which have already found jjlace in city life. 

Public authority has a closer grip on sanitation than ever before. 
There is a more generous disposition to deal with its exercise un- 
complainingly. The aim of medicine is prevention I'athei' than 
remedy. Every menace to the jjublic health is sought to be brought 
within rh(^ ])urview of the law. Its ])olice ])Ower is summoned to 
reach otherwise unsolvable problems. The Slaughter House cases, 
commonly so styled, where Louisiana to jiiotect the health of the 



13 

t"ly of New Orleans cietited a liujie monopoly, which it was con- 
i-endeil iuijiaiied juivilo-ies and ininmnities fuudauientally guaran- 
1(ed; the eases sustaiiiinj^ the various statutes of the several states 
re<;nlafin<»' the practice of medicine, dentistry, pliarmaey to protect 
tl:c public against the ignorant and incompetent practitioner are 
of the numerous instances of the law's determination to invoke the 
l)olice power alone, should other reasons be wanting. 

Observe the contrast when learned nn^n even wer<* called upon to 
deteruiine (juestions of like inipcnt in the olden time. A street in 
old Paris, on wiiich was located a convent, was to be paved at the 
expense of the inhabitants. \Mieu the convent was solicited for its 
share of the contribution the abbess declined to respoud. maintaining 
that the vows of In i- ordei- invoked nothing in the matter of public 
ilcanlii'ess. On ajtpeal to the ecclesiastical jurisdiction upon which 
rested tlie ultimate detei niination of the issue, the abbess was sus- 
tained npon the ground that there was no precedent for taxing re- 
ligion m the interests of science. Municipal authority did not al- 
A\ays clioose to assf^t itself, but whenever it did its efforts were 
i'verywhere defied despite the ravages of disease and the frequent 
recurrence of the plague. 

The cidlege ])rofessor has latterly become a valuable instructor in 
the lessons of every day life, and his own better familiarity with those 
veiy lessons has by no means lessened his opportunities. Known 
heretofoie only to his j)U}»ils, his faculty, in his class room and his 
study, the whole reading public now claim his acquaintanceship. 
His appearance on the lecture platform, his numerous contributions 
to magazine and jieriodical, his scholarly additions to literature, 
science, art. history, in book and pamphlet, have so w idened his inliu- 
ence that the jjublic as well as the student have the advantage of his 
istta.inments. A]:idication of occurrence to princiide. analysis, illus- 
tration lutve n>easurably enlarged the usefulness of the text book, 
t'> which, until recently, the professor's authorship had been almost 
solely confined. If the ])upil was letter perfect in text book lore, 
he had a reasonable expectancy of a satisfactory acquaintance. 
]vren)ory had not that intimate association with understanding which 
by a better developed system it is now sought to encoui'age. 

The American people have but scant tolerance for inherited dis- 
tinction, whether of title (»r based upon what some one else has done. 
On the other hand, tiie American looks kindly "upon military titles, 
n])(m p-rofessional titles, upon political titles." In themselves they 
represent achievement and stand for personal effort and sncces.^. 
\yhen distinction is once won and worthily won, he who secures it 
never fails of appreciative recognition. All men who have won dis- 



14 

tiiR-tiou have eoiitiibutcd soiiu'tliin^- to the state. None moi-e than 
tliose who Avrite. 

Where is tlieie more lesouifefiil history, reminiscent and philo- 
sophic, riper scientific criticism, richer biographical review, than 
from his vast acqniremeDts John Fiske has supplied to American 
literature? Where has the culture of the faculty been better pre- 
sented for public apprecation than by Woodrow Wilson, Moses (.Vat 
Tyler, Franklin Henry (Jiddings, Benjamin Ide Wheeler? Who 
would ever have felt, despite of what he knew before, that he ever 
liad close acquaintance with Napoleon and his times, after William 
Milligan Sloane has so opportunely drawn us to such an intimate 
relationship with that momentous period? Who will fail to render 
grateful tribute to John Bache McMaster for the exhaustive research 
A\hich has enabled him, in such graceful deliverance, to acquaint us 
so accurately with every phase of the career of our great Republic, 
whether in the days of its cheering prosperity, or in the days of its 
grave vicissitudes? Who is richer in variety of attractive themes, 
presented with instructive method and in pleasing diction, than 
Harry Thurston Peck? Where is there better fulfillment of so mod- 
est an introduction, "This book is an attempt to apply the methods 
of modern science to the problems of modern business," than in 
Aithur Twining Hadley's substantial contribution to economic liter- 
ature in his "account of the relations between i)rivate property and 
public welfare?" 



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